Advertising for the Solo & Small Law Firm

One of the dilemmas for any solo or small firm is advertising.  There are lots of options from the traditional Yellow Pages to going digital with Google Adsense. An interesting discussion started this morning on the MSBA Solo/Small Firm Listserv. 

Dennis O'Toole of the Lano, Nelson, O'Toole & Bengtson, Ltd law firm in Grand Rapids, MN noted that they are reevaluating their advertising strategy:

We are in the process of (again) reevaluating our advertising/promotion budget.  Given our practice, which consists of primarily of business-corporate, commercial real estate, civil litigation (including plaintiff, commercial, insurance and general litigation) and estate planning, we have found that traditional advertising is less and less fruitful.

He went on to note that Martindale-Hubbell and their website have been successful bringing in business from out of state sources while local business has been coming generally from word-of-mouth, particularly from happy clients (good job Dennis!).  He concludes:

Several have responded with good observations and advice of their own.  Roy Ginsburg, who coaches lawyers on all aspects of their practice including marketing noted:

Agree with much of what you say. Having a good website is more important than ever. ... Yellow pages are pretty much of a waste.... Conventional wisdom is that TV only works if you’re willing to spend big bucks. However, I wouldn’t poo poo all advertising....  Advertising provides brand awareness and credibility.... I would never recommend spending a large % of one’s marketing budget on advertising, but for some, a small % may make sense depending upon the practice area.

Family law lawyer Liz Pierce has found local neighborhood newspaper ads a good source of business:

I use exclusively yellowpages.com and local neighborhood papers.  Yellowpages.com is probably a waste of money and I doubt I will sign up again.  In family law it seems that the grassroots ads work best.  Being seen, doing stuff and local ads make sense.  Many of the calls I do get from yellowpages.com are looking for a cheap attorney who can move mountains.  I am past the age of thinking I can move mountains and past the age of being cheap.  So much for yellowpages.

Consumer attorney and legal tech maven Sam Glover has, not surprisingly, been tracking where his business has been coming from:

About half come from good, old-fashioned, person-to-person networking. The other half come from my online activity. Many of these come directly from my blog [Caveat Emptor]; others come indirectly from other lawyers who know me and what I do. I am also experimenting with Google advertising.

Sam is has also been running an interesting experiment through his Lawyerist blog (which is, by the way, an excellent blog for solo and small firms lawyers to subscribe to) with Yodle:

Along those lines, we got a great opportunity at Lawyerist to test-drive Yodle, one of the big search-engine marketing firms. They gave us about $6,000 worth of their services, and ad spending, which we passed on to Brea Buettner, a new bankruptcy/consumer lawyer. You can follow the whole thing at http://lawyerist.com/tag/yodle-challenge/ but the gist of it is that, after about a month, $2,500 or so in setup and web design fees, and $1,000 in ad spending, she has not gotten a single client, though she has heard from about a dozen people looking for free advice, and one or two that may actually become clients at some point. So far, no good, but they have committed to a three-month test. (They gave us this because my "Yodle sucks" post shows up fifth when you Google "Yodle:" http://www.google.com/search?&q=yodle.)....That said, I do think search advertising is a good buy for some practice areas. I have gotten some business from it, and I am planning a reconfiguration of my website to let me track results better.

So, what are your experiences with advertising?  Do the Yellow Pages still work?  Are you finding new on-line means of getting the word out about your firm?  How are you tracking results?  What has been working, what hasn't?

- Peter H. Berge

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